But U.S. District Judge Gerald Rosen is surely the first to see the annual extravaganza as an opportunity to promote the settlement of a municipal bankruptcy.

And if his high-pressure sale pitch succeeds, Rosen will have pulled off a coup that eclipses anything Michigan’s resurgent automakers brought to the party.

Rosen’s announcement that nine national and regional foundations have pledged $330 million to protect Detroit’s most valuable art holdings and its must vulnerable residents from the grasp of bankruptcy creditors was monster news in the Motor City, where emergency manager Kevyn Orr’s efforts to erase $18 billion in municipal debt have evoked nightmarish visions of looted museums and Depression-era breadlines.

But by making the foundations’ initiative public on the opening day of a commercial extravaganza being covered by more than 3,000 journalists, Rosen made sure it would make headlines around the world as well. His timing also guaranteed that Gov. Rick Snyder and other elected leaders making obligatory visits to the Cobo Hall exhibition would be asked not just about their reactions to the redesigned Corvette, but also about how they plan to respond to the philanthropic community’s extraordinary pledge.

And if Snyder was able to hold off his inquisitors in his initial sortie onto the auto show floor Tuesday, he’ll be harder pressed to ignore the foundations’ initiative when he presents his annual State of the State address Thursday night, on the eve of the auto show’s annual charity preview.

The question on the table is at once pivotal and urgent: Will Snyder exhort state lawmakers to meet the foundations half-way, matching their nine-figure commitment with a comparable pledge of public support?

Or will he defer to legislative leaders in his own party, obediently affixing his signature to whatever token contribution out-state lawmakers eying the November election reluctantly cough up?

On the defensive

It’s probably unfair, in any cosmic scheme of justice, to hold Snyder responsible for the success or failure of Rosen’s initiative. The governor is not principally responsible for the desperate predicament in which Detroit finds itself, and he deserves credit for facing up to a fiscal nightmare none of his predecessors in either party had the courage to confront.

But politics is famously unfair. And by mobilizing the foundations to dangle the prospect of a solution to one of the toughest challenges facing Orr, Rosen has effectively forced Snyder to seize it or be held accountable for any subsequent injury to pensioners or the DIA.

If the deal Rosen is trying to broker fails for lack of a robust response from Lansing, the governor who forced a reckoning in Detroit risks being remembered as the guy who failed to grasp the lifeline extended by the non-profit sector.

That’s not to say Rosen hasn’t done Snyder a favor by backing him into such a public corner.

Both Snyder and Orr have insisted repeatedly that the state will not pledge its taxpayers’ money to settle Detroit’s outstanding obligations. But U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes, who is presiding over Detroit’s Chapter 9 filing and has enlisted Rosen as his chief mediator/enforcer, has been equally forceful in urging the state to minimize any financial impact on pensioners.

Clearly, something is going to have to give.

A way forward

What Rosen has provided is an opportunity for Snyder to steer a pragmatic course between GOP legislators hostile to any assistance for Detroit and a bankruptcy court that seems determined to extract some contribution from the state.

Look, the governor can now tell his party’s legislators, we were never going to get out of this mess without paying something; now, at least, the foundations are offering to pick up part of the tab. Let’s cut our losses and be remembered as the party that rescued Detroit’s priceless masterpieces and helpless widows from the precipice.

Snyder won’t make that sale in a single speech, of course. But what better moment to get the ball rolling than Thursday night’s State of the State address?

This is the week Detroit takes center stage, in all its misery and magnificence. And thanks to Rosen and his merry band of philanthropists, the whole world is watching to see what Rick Snyder does next.